


New Beginnings

by onemooncircles



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Family, Friendship, Moon's Thedas, Parenthood, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-12 14:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5669236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onemooncircles/pseuds/onemooncircles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heading home after concluding his business with the Inquisition, Varric pays a visit to some friends he has lied through his teeth to protect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This exists because of theherocomplex, who not only encouraged me to get it written but was kind enough to give it the once-over for me, too. Thank you, Bee!

_Not far now_ , Varric thinks, pausing for perhaps the twentieth time to adjust the straps holding his pack across his shoulders. He has carried it without respite for five days, bouncing around in the back of a cart that made the journey from Skyhold to Jader considerably faster – and markedly less comfortable - than it would have been on foot. Now that he's on solid ground again, the pack's uneven weight has begun to bite: his back aches, his legs feel like lead, and he can't recall ever having felt so tired - or so keenly aware that he is no longer a boy. 

_Bartrand_ , he thinks, and his pack feels ten pounds heavier at once.

He shuts his eyes, as if doing so will shut out the image that has formed unbidden in his mind: his mother's house, an oversized red tunic and a pair of feet surrounded by shards of priceless stoneware. _Long gone now_ , he thinks, and a little grunt - part surprise and part knowing acceptance - escapes him and is carried away on the early evening air. Long gone indeed. The boy he'd been, the plate he'd broken, the lecture he'd received from his brother on the importance of tradition: these things exist now only as vague shadows, relics from a less complicated time when problems were small and pain was an abstract concept with no personal relevance. He rubs at the bridge of his nose with a gloved hand, hearing the minute creak of leather, catching its faint weathered scent and thinking of Kirkwall, Kirkwall, Kirkwall. _It's not much, but it's home_ , he thinks, and tries to force a smile; he finds he can't. Kirkwall is still at least two weeks away, looming on the far edge of the Waking Sea, and despite letters and assurances from friends, from acquaintances, and from his editor, he doesn't know what he will find when he gets there. Part of him – a large part, he is discovering – is afraid.

Opening his eyes again he looks up at the darkening sky. The day is fading fast; lamps and torches are lighting up here and there in the street about him, and up ahead, on the left-hand side of the cobbled thoroughfare that will lead him down to the Jader docks, a tavern shingle moves in a light breeze. Cloudreach is mild in this part of Orlais and although a thin mist has begun to creep inland, the cold isn't yet intense enough to make him wish for a heavier coat. That's something, at least, as his cold-weather gear is in storage at Skyhold and he doesn't think he'll be returning to fetch it any time soon. Not if he has a choice in the matter, at any rate.

Lifting his head he fixes his gaze on the gently-swaying shingle of the tavern: The Crown & Anchor, it reads. The letters have been engraved in a semicircle around an ineptly-executed intaglio that might have depicted a crown and an anchor, but might equally have been intended to represent a sheepdog and a handsaw or two badgers fighting over a shoe. Varric is almost certain that on his first visit here – very nearly two years ago, now – there had been no shingle at all and the place had simply been called The Anchor. Perhaps there has been a Royal Visit in the intervening time. He wonders, briefly, whether the Empress Celene takes her ale by the pint or the half; there's potential in the idea of an Imperial personage with a secret identity, a high society elite whose great love is drinking until dawn in flea-pit taverns and arm-wrestling sailors for the last piece of sausage. _I've got to write that down_ , he tells himself distractedly, and then he squares his shoulders and tugs at his pack-straps again, and with a concentrated physical effort he makes his feet move. He's almost there now: just a little further, a little more, and he'll be able to set down his burden – maybe all of his burdens – for a little while. _Except you're going to be sharing a few of them around, aren't you? Most houseguests bring a bottle. You're bringing a headache._

Varric follows the winding residential street for perhaps three quarters of an hour, purposefully but not with speed; he remembers the way, but allows himself to wander a little. Jader, in common with port towns everywhere, is a wonderful place for people-watching: there are characters on every corner, every tavern heaves with intrigues, every seemingly innocuous house might easily conceal … _what?_

A monster, perhaps. Or a hero. Or both. He thinks of the letters tucked into the pocket concealed inside his coat: one from Hawke – _'come to us, we'd love to see you, stay as long as you like'_ – and the other … the other something entirely different. Something he can't yet bring himself to think about in any detail. _'My name is Lirene'_ , that letter says, _'and I write to you on behalf of our mutual acquaintance; although I cannot at present divulge his whereabouts, if you are his friend then I ask you ...'_

There are heroes and there are monsters, and sometimes there is no distinction between the two, and oh but nothing is ever settled, is it? Nothing ever comes to a tidy end the way it does in stories and in legends.

He tries to shake the thought from his mind, not yet ready to give it room to grow. As he does so a door opens on his right and disgorges a shouting, cursing tangle of limbs that resolves itself into an almost impossibly ancient elven woman, her face a map of lines and wrinkles that fold into a tracery of what might be Dalish tattoos. Her iron-grey hair is pulled up into an eccentric knot on the top of her head and her eyes have the leery, watery cast of the committed drunk. She screeches something Varric can't catch, and from the doorway behind her another woman – also elderly, judging by the tremor in her voice - shouts down to her that she needn't bother to come back. By the time the door slams shut again, Varric has already given both women names and tentatively made mental notes of three possible directions for a plot. Port towns, he reflects, are wellsprings of oddity - and what storyteller could walk through one and come away without at least a little new material?

Leaving the inebriated elven woman banging on the door with one small gnarled fist (and alternately cursing and professing her adoration for the woman on the other side), Varric pads on into the rising harbour mist. Part of the story - something about an elven pirate queen and a lifelong quest to recover a lost love - has already formed in his mind, temporarily distracting him from the relentless drumbeat of _Bartrand … Kirkwall … Bartrand … Kirkwall_ that has plagued his thoughts for so many months. _Fifteen months, one week, and three days_ , he thinks, and shudders at the memory: Cassandra Pentaghast's helmeted goons dragging him through the Gallows, the Seeker pinning him back in his chair and demanding to know where the Champion could be found. _Hawke_ , he thinks, and now he does manage a smile; a small one, but a smile nonetheless. Just a little farther. He's almost there, now: he can hear the clanking of halyards against their masts, the low irregular knocking as clutter and debris floating in the dank dark harbour water fetch up against the sides of fishing boats and rowboats and little skiffs.

As the last daylight fades and the first stars begin to peer out overhead, Varric turns onto the waterfront road (more cobbles – what great historical wit had decided that cobbles were the best way to pave a street?) and begins to count the torches on the walls of the dwellings that look out over the harbour. At the tenth torch he halts and glances up to make sure of the house: tall, narrow, its flat front wall whitewashed and pierced twice by small rectangular windows in the lower right and upper left quadrants. The single step leading up to the brightly painted (red) front door has been whitewashed, too. A neat house, but not too neat; a house that is cared for, but not conspicuously. Varric pulls at his pack-straps again, rubs the back of his aching neck, reaches out, and raps smartly on the door, three times, in rapid succession.

Inside the house a volley of excited barks breaks out in immediate answer. A gruff voice tells the barker to be quiet, and Varric thinks _well now, sounds like someone's as cheerful as ever_. The halyards clank and tinkle and chime and the little boats bob and pitch and yaw in the murky harbour; somewhere far off the Chantry bell begins tolling the eighth hour. Nearer at hand - on the other side of the door – Varric hears the sound of scraping furniture and soft footfalls. A bolt is drawn back, then another, and a latch lifts, and there is a creak and a soft metallic groan as the door opens and spills warm, welcoming firelight out into the misty spring night.

“Varric,” Fenris observes flatly, leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded across his narrow chest. His hair has grown long and more than a little wild; it hangs on his bare shoulders in careless shaggy tangles. He is dressed only in a pair of loose, faded dove-grey trousers and the firelight gleams on the lyrium carved into his skin.

Varric sketches a little bow. “Good to see you again, Broody,” he says, grinning and hoping it doesn't look as forced as it feels. “You need a haircut.”

Fenris lets out a derisive little huff, then turns and goes inside, leaving the door open. Knowing that this is likely the closest thing to an invitation he will get from the elf, Varric steps over the threshold into the warmth and light of the combined parlour and kitchen that is the heart of the house.

The moment he sets foot inside, he is greeted by another volley of exuberant barks. A shape – more barrel than dog – bounds toward him and he takes a step back, not wanting to be knocked over. He starts to say _well hello there, boy_ , but before he can get the words out he finds he is staring into Prince's drooling maw, a paw the size of a soup-plate resting heavily on each of his shoulders. He opens his mouth to speak again and a long pink tongue unfurls and swipes his face from chin to forehead.  
“Nice to see you too,” he chuckles, shutting his eyes and raising a gloved hand to wipe the dog's saliva from his mouth and nose. _I've had worse welcomes_ , he thinks. “How've you been, huh?” The mabari utters a single loud bark – one that makes Varric's ears ring – and then settles back on his haunches, tongue lolling. There are flecks of grey on his muzzle and his chest that had not been there at the time of Varric's last visit. He must be twelve, now; not ancient by the standards of his breed, but no longer a young dog by any means. _What's she going to do when your time's up, fella?_ he thinks, and then crushes the thought before it can take hold; he has been thinking like that too much lately. He forces a smile. “Got a little snow on the old snout, boy?” he asks, and rubs the dog's big flat head companionably. He is rewarded with another bark – and another lunging slurp that makes him splutter.

Fenris shuts the door, latches and bolts it, then leans back against it with his arms crossed. His feet are bare – Varric has never yet seen him wearing boots, not once in all the years they have been acquainted – and unusually clean; in Kirkwall they had been almost black much of the time, despite the elf's best efforts to fight back the soot and the dust. There is a single narrow braid – visible now thanks to the firelight – half hidden in the hair behind his right ear. It has been tied off with a tiny piece of red string, and Varric wonders just how in the world Hawke managed to get away with such a thing; he certainly can't imagine Fenris doing it himself.

“Make yourself at home,” the elf says, sounding anything but welcoming.

It has been very nearly two years since Varric's first and only visit here: Hawke had just given birth to her son, and Varric had made the trip from Kirkwall with Merrill and Carver and Charade, the four of them taking it in turns to haul a pack bursting at the seams with presents for the baby. He rememebers it well: a cosy, rectangular room with rough whitewashed walls and a mellow polished wooden floor scattered with Nevarran rugs, heated on one side by a cast iron stove with a crazily bent and distorted flue and on the other by a broad, inviting inglenook fireplace.  
On one side of this latter stands the narrow open staircase that leads up to to the first floor; on the other, in the corner facing the front door, is a large pile of cedar logs waiting to be fed into the glowing hearth. The low sweet scent of them reminds Varric of summer and he breathes it in gratefully. This is a good room, a good _home_ , and suddenly he feels more tired and ready for sleep than any man still standing upright has any business being.

A knot explodes in the grate with a loud crack and Fenris pushes himself away from the front door and pads across to the fireplace, taking a slim iron poker from a rack beside the log-pile and prodding the embers. “Sit, Varric,” he says, and Varric thinks _well, it's not like I was expecting a hug._

Facing the inglenook is a plain square dining table, just large enough for four people at a squeeze; there are six mismatched chairs arranged around it and Varric reaches out for the back of one of them. “Thanks,” he says wearily, and begins to unhook his pack. “I hope I'm not intruding.”  


Prince – who has followed him across the room – utters another bark, then slopes beneath the table, curls up, and appears to go to sleep almost at once. Varric hopes that means no.  


“You were expected,” Fenris answers, hanging the poker in the rack again and leaning back against the chimney-breast, apparently oblivious to the fierce heat being thrown out by the fire. “Hawke will be pleased to see you.”

_Ouch,_ Varric thinks, but before he can say anything else the parlour door bangs open and Hawke struggles through it, dressed in a shapeless wine-coloured shift and carrying her small son awkwardly on one hip.

“Hello, stranger!” she exclaims, beaming, and just for an instant Varric is transported back to the Hanged Man and to the old days – Wicked Grace and laughter and Corff's watered beer, and all they'd had to worry about were blood mages and slavers and the occasional sharp-witted Templar. Then the erstwhile Champion of Kirkwall laughs, and the spell is broken: he is back in the present again. He stares at her, unblinking, momentarily surprised into speechlessness by the boy – _has it really been so long? He was just a tiny baby!_ \- and by her impossibly round belly.

“Hawke!” he says at last, and finds it is all he can manage. _I'll be damned._

“More of me than you were expecting, eh?” she asks; then she looks over at Fenris, offering him a theatrical wink, and adds, “Expecting. See what I did there?”

The elf utters a small pained noise and raises his eyes briefly heavenward - but there is a softness in the set of his features that Varric can't help but notice. Hawke's face arranges itself into a comic pout. “Oh well,” she says, “I tried.” She sets her son on his feet on one of the brightly-coloured woven rugs strewn haphazardly across the floor; the boy has caught sight of his parents' houseguest and the moment his mother releases him he toddles over to investigate, grinning maniacally. He is tall for not-quite-two and very sure on his feet. His eyes – distinctly different, one grey, one green – are bright and inquisitive, peeking out from beneath a mop of unruly black hair that sticks up in at least seven different directions. He has his father's warm olive complexion and the influence of his elven blood is clearly visible in his features, but the expression on his face is pure Hawke: bright, joyful curiosity. Varric laughs; such open and uncomplicated glee in response to discovering someone new is infectious, and the grin that spreads across his face in answer to it is as involuntary as breathing.

“Well, shit,” he chuckles, “Firion Malcolm Hawke, Esquire, as I live and breathe. Look at you, little fella! You must've grown a foot and a half since the last time I saw you.” The boy giggles, drops heavily onto his rump, and begins examining Varric's boots.

“Yes,” Hawke says, crossing her arms beneath a bosom that has itself at least tripled in size since their last meeting, “he's grown. They do that, I'm afraid – it seems there's no stopping it. There's no stopping him learning curse-words, either, and now he knows another one. Thanks for that.”

Varric's grin becomes a little sheepish as he realizes his mistake; he mumbles an apology.

“Oh, don't worry about it,” Hawke replies, sounding both tickled and exasperated. “At least I'll be able to understand what he's saying if he decides to repeat it. You should hear some of the mangled Tevene man-child noises he's picked up.”

Fenris, still leaning against the chimney-breast, grunts and turns his head, staring pointedly into the fire … but Varric notes with amusement that he is smiling. _Would you look at that? He's not even a little bit mad_. Firion, meanwhile, has caught sight of the mabari dozing beneath the dining table and has lost interest in his parents' visitor.

“So, uh … let's talk about you, Hawke,” Varric says, looking back up at her and grinning. “It seems Junior's not the only one who's been through a growth-spurt.”

“Tell me about it,” she replies. “I haven't seen my toes since Wintersend.”

“I wish you'd warned me. If I'd known I would've brought something. You know, a … kid-warming present, or something.”

“Couldn't risk it,” Hawke says, shaking her head, and Varric supposes that's fair enough: cypher or no cypher, letters can be intercepted and read. The children of a wanted apostate can only be kept safe if they are also kept hidden.

“Yeah, I guess I can understand that,” he says. “What I don't understand is how you managed to talk the elf into it.”

She smirks, glancing over at Fenris again. “Oh, it wasn't that difficult,” she replies. “I have my methods.”

Varric grins. “Sure you do,” he says. “You, uh, you won't mind if I try not to think about them, right?”

“If you could manage not to think about them at all, I'd appreciate it,” she replies, returning the grin.

“Easier said than done, but I guess I'll find a way. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Now … come here, you.” She crosses the parlour, her shapeless shift ballooning around her, and – with some difficulty – gets down onto one knee and throws her arms around Varric's shoulders. When he tries to return the gesture her belly gets in the way.

“Bloody flames, you're as big as a house,” he chuckles. “When are you, uh … you know … supposed to drop?”

Fenris huffs laughter; he's smirking. “Delicately put, Varric,” he says, and Hawke grins in apparent agreement; she pulls back a little so she can talk to Varric face to face, rather than face to ear.

“Don't worry," she says. "You're not about to find yourself up to your ears in fluffy water and boiling towels. Despite what you see before you I've still got another three months to go.”

“Uh … you sure about that? I'm afraid to make a loud noise in case you go off.”

She lets out a peal of laughter, apparently delighted. When it subsides, she pulls her features into a comic grimace and says, “Twins. I've got two people inside me fighting over who gets to use my bladder as a football – hence the absurd bump. You can congratulate us again, if you like.”

He stares at her. “Twins? You're shitting me.”

“I am most definitely not. I suppose it was an obvious possibility, really, but funnily enough it never occurred to me at all until the midwife told me what was going on in there. Terrifying woman - she's qunari, must be seven feet tall if she's an inch and her face looks like a relief map of the moon. She lives at the other end of this street. Used to be a sailor. I'll have to introduce you, she's perfect character-material.”

“A qunari midwife, huh?”

“Yes. She's fabulous, actually; when I told her I was worried about giving birth to twins she said I should think myself lucky elves don't have horns. Then she offered me a mug of gin and asked if I wanted to play a hand of Diamondback.”

“I'm in love with her already,” Varric says, and thinks _I'm not kidding, I really think I might be._

“I'll have to arrange for the two of you to meet while you're here. But enough about us,” Hawke says, pulling back from him a little further and settling her hands on his shoulders. “What about you, eh? How are you?”

Beneath the dining table, Firion is engaged in the important and serious business of sucking Prince's left ear. The mabari seems not to mind in the least. _Nothing like being wanted, I guess,_ Varric thinks, and when he looks back at Hawke he sees that her expression – so open and full of mirth just a moment ago – has become watchful and questioning, her keen grey eyes searching his face. For a moment he simply does not know how to answer her. He is tired, so tired, and his heart hurts and his head hurts and all he wants – _all_ he wants – is to sleep for a month and wake up in his own bed and find that the last four years have been an ugly fever-dream.

“I'm fine,” he says at last. “Just, you know … tired.”

She looks at him for what feels like a very long time, and he is a little afraid that she will challenge him, call him a liar, demand to know what troubles him; and how could he ever explain? _I hurt in ways I never knew a man could hurt. I came here because you know what hurt feels like and because I'm scared to go home. I came here because a woman wrote me a letter and I don't want to deal with it alone._

But she doesn't press him. Instead she puts her arms around his neck again and squeezes. Her lips push against his cheek briefly and she murmurs something that sounds like an apology; a lock of her hair – heavy, thick, the colour of warm molasses - falls against his face and the smell of sandalwood soap that emanates from it reminds him once more of Kirkwall in the old days, of Kirkwall in another life. _Long gone now_ , he thinks, and he returns her embrace, eyes shut tight. It feels a little like coming home … except it's a home that is now a place in the past, a place that can only be returned to in memory, like that long-ago room in which a careless little boy had once smashed a plate and taken a tongue-lashing. _Bartrand_ , he thinks, and yes, it hurts. It hurts.

“Perhaps we should eat now,” Fenris says from his post beside the hearth. “It is … getting late.” His tone is diffident, but something in the cadence of the words makes Varric believe the elf has – perhaps – guessed some of what he is thinking.

Hawke lets go, giving her guest another searching look as she does so. “Good idea,” she agrees. “You must be starving.”

“Yeah,” Varric replies. “Now that you mention it, I could probably choke down a bite or two. But I don't want you to go to any trouble.”

“No trouble,” Hawke says, struggling to her feet and rubbing distractedly at the small of her back. “Dinner's all set – lamb stew and dumplings. Orana made it this afternoon, it just needs heating up.”

Varric's stomach growls; Orana's lamb stew is a thing of beauty. “Sounds good to me,” he says, and is surprised to discover that his mouth is watering. “Where is the little sparrow, anyway? She here?”

Hawke shakes her head. “Varania's taken her to the theatre. She'll be back late – they go every week to watch those serial melodrama things the Orlesians love so much. I can't see the attraction, personally, but then of course I'm just a silly Fereldan turnip.”

Fenris huffs laughter and pushes away from the fireplace, making for the stove. “A turnip would be more use in the kitchen,” he says, teasingly, and Varric can't help but chuckle at that: it is his considered opinion that the Fereldan reputation for failure in the culinary arts is well deserved, and in mistress Miranda Hawke it has always found an exemplar.

“I'm not _that_ bad,” she protests, putting her hands on her hips. “Not as bad as I used to be, anyway. In fact I'd go so far as to say that I'm practically domesticated these days.”

Fenris looks back at her reproachfully and says, “Hawke.”

“I brought you breakfast in bed this morning,” she retorts, sounding indignant.

“You spilled porridge on the counterpane and asked if I wanted any,” Fenris replies, turning away from her to lift a large copper pot onto the stove. “I would not describe that as 'breakfast in bed'.”

“Don't nitpick,” Hawke says, and Varric is charmed to see a little smirk playing at one corner of her mouth. “It still counts.”

“I beg to differ,” Fenris replies.

“You always do,” she says, “but that doesn't change the fact that I made porridge and then brought it to you. Therefore proving that I am, in fact, domesticated. As I said.”

“You did not make it. Orana made it. You merely spooned it into a bowl and brought it back to bed with you.”

“Still bickering, huh?” Varric interjects. “Good to see some things never change. Elf, if you throw in a little speech about the evils of magic it'll feel just like old times.”

Fenris laughs and begins to stir the contents of the pot.


	2. Chapter 2

In the four years that have passed since Hawke and Fenris left Kirkwall for Llomerryn, Varric has not tasted anything that quite measures up to Orana's spiced lamb and green pepper stew. He is a passable cook himself – an excellent cook, in fact, if he's honest – but he has never been able to replicate the recipe with any degree of success. Now, sitting in this bright, cosy room with a belly full of it and a mug of excellent Orlesian wine at his elbow, he thinks he knows what was missing from his attempts at recreating it. _Care_ , he thinks, _that's all: when you're cooking for people you care about, the food just tastes better._

“Had enough to eat?” Hawke asks, leaning over the table to take an apple from a wide-rimmed clay dish. The fire has burned low in the hearth and the shadows have lengthened; the flickering light of oil-lamps, set in little alcoves in the walls, plays on her face as she moves.

“More than enough, thanks,” Varric replies, easing himself back in his chair. “If I eat any more I'll have to retire my belt.” He feels a good deal better, there's no denying that: it never ceases to amaze him how much influence a decent meal can exercise over a man's mood.

“Good,” she says, looking satisfied. “Then we can start. There was precious little news in your last letter and not much more than that in the one before. Tell me everything.”

Varric takes a deep breath and is about to reply when Fenris – who has spent the duration of their meal trying to convince his son to eat the stew rather than wear it and is now sitting with the boy on his lap, poring over a picture-book with all the frowning concentration of a serious scholar – interrupts him. 

“It can wait, Hawke,” he says. Varric thinks he sees a shadow of concern on the elf's face, though he can't be sure; it may be a trick of the light.

Hawke blinks at him, evidently incredulous. “Are you serious?” she asks. “Don't you want to know what's been happening in the world? What happened with, say, that fellow who claimed he was a thousand-year-old Tevinter magister? I would have thought that would be of some interest to you.”

Varric watches the elf's jaw clench and relax, clench and relax. _He's pissed about something_ , he thinks. _What?_

“It is … late,” Fenris replies, “and Varric has had a long journey. News can wait until tomorrow. Besides, it is past time this one was in bed.” He glances down at his son and brushes hair from the boy's forehead, tucking it behind a little round ear that terminates in a tiny point.

Now Varric's curiosity is roused. _He doesn't want to talk about it tomorrow_ , he thinks. _He doesn't want to talk about it at all. Why?_

Hawke, looking frustrated but sounding conciliatory, says, “You're right. I'm sorry, Varric, I'm being horribly selfish – I'm sure you're exhausted.” She pushes her chair back. “I'll go and see to your room, sort you out some hot water. Will you want enough for a bath?” She doesn't wait for him to answer, instead getting to her feet and skirting around the table.  


Varric – feeling suddenly horribly awkward – says, “No, Hawke. Really, I'm fine. I took a bath before I left Skyhold, I'm good for another week at least.” He grins, and she grins back.  


“Well, I expect you'd feel better for a wash before bed, anyway,” she says. “I'll be back in a bit.”  


“You don't have to --”  


“Shush, Varric.”  


He shushes, and she climbs the wooden stairs leading up to the attic room that serves as the little house's upper floor. The staircase – really no more than a large angled ladder - is rough cedarwood, like the logs beside the fire, but the frame and risers have been oiled and polished with considerable care and the wood seems to glow in the firelight. Varric has a vague memory of them having been in a much less handsome condition on his first visit here – but that had been only a few months after the present occupants had moved into the house, and they had been busy with a son who was then only three weeks old. At some point in the last two years, someone – surely Hawke or Orana, for Fenris's housekeeping can't possibly have improved so much in such a short time – has taken great pains to turn the place into a home. _You work with what you have_ , Varric thinks, _if you love it enough_. 

The stairs creak faintly as Hawke reaches the top, and he looks up just in time to catch sight of her bare feet disappearing through the open attic doorway. There's a long scar on the left sole that he can't remember seeing before, and he wonders how she came by it; before he can call up to her to ask, her son interrupts his thoughts.

“Cat!” Firion shouts triumphantly, and when Varric glances across the table he sees Fenris's markings flare, briefly but brightly. He has pushed aside the supper dishes to make room for Firion's picture-book; it lies open at a page featuring a colourful illustration of a large orange cat with black stripes.

“Yes. Good,” the elf says, sounding astonishingly smug and wearing an expression that is a mixture of tremendous pride and something a little like wistfulness. “This particular type of cat is called a tiger. It lives in jungles in the North and can swallow a dwarf whole.” He glances up at Varric, smirking, and Varric thinks _well, how about that? You're full of surprises, Broody._

“Dorf!” Firion exclaims, and points at his father's guest. “Eat dorf!”

Varric laughs. “Bright boy,” he says. “He'll go far.” Prince, who has settled himself in front of the fire and is gnawing happily on a lamb bone, huffs in apparent agreement. Fenris says nothing, but his smug expression evaporates. “You, uh … you all right?” Varric asks, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. _Why do I feel like I just said the wrong thing?_

After a long pause, Fenris says, “She is happy, Varric. Do not bring her trouble.” 

Varric looks back at him for a moment … and then finds he has to drop his gaze. _So that's what's bothering him._ “That's not why I'm here, elf,” he says, trying to sound brighter than he feels; suddenly all the good cheer engendered by the meal seems to be draining away. He rubs his weary eyes with a rough hand and hangs his head. Firion begins spooning leftover stew out of his bowl and onto the surface of the table beside his book. 

“You may not intend it,” Fenris says, “but every time you make your presence felt in her life it leads to harm. Need I remind you of the damage that has been done as a result of her involvement with you and that brother of yours?” 

Varric shakes his head again, bitterly this time, not in denial but in sorrow. “Do you really think I _need_ reminding?” he asks, staring into his cup. “Why do you think I tried so hard to keep her out of what's been happening?” _Why do you think I let the Seeker haul my ass half way across Thedas when I should have been in Kirkwall?_

“You did not try hard enough,” Fenris replies, taking the spoon from his son without looking and placing it out of reach. “The letters you wrote to her about this business you've been involved with – do you know after the first one came she did not sleep for four days? She was already sufficiently distressed by the Breach and the news of what was happening in Kirkwall. She spent weeks in a panic, writing letters day and night, trying to discover what was happening – to you, to her friends, to her brother, even to people she barely knows." He pauses, frowning, then resumes. "Had she not been nursing our child, I believe she would have gone off to find you and tried to involve herself in yet another disastrous attempt to mend the petty evils of others.”

“I wouldn't exactly describe the Breach as a petty evil,” Varric mutters, and instantly regrets it when he sees the elf's markings flare again.

“You saw how she was when we left Kirkwall, dwarf,” Fenris says, and this time there is anger in his voice. “You saw what it did to her, knowing that the abomination had tried to involve her in his _plot_ \- ” The last word comes out like a curse spat into the air, and Varric shifts uneasily in his seat. 

“Fenris,” he says, “I know.”

“You do not,” Fenris intones flatly. “You did not see her wandering the ship like a ghost on the voyage to Llomerryn, not eating, not sleeping, not _talking_. Can you imagine Hawke not talking, Varric?”  


Varric finds he can say nothing; he'd known things were bad for her then, but he had not thought them _that_ bad. Her letters in those first months after the end came in Kirkwall had been uncharacteristically distant and gloomy, but he had put that down to the shock she'd suffered – the shock they had all suffered. “No,” he says, after a long pause, “I can't.”  


“It was all we could do to keep her alive. She would not even _bathe_ – Isabela had to throw a bucket of water over her to encourage her to pick up the habit again. _Isabela.”_

The image this calls to Varric's mind does nothing to lighten his mood. He says, “I don't know what you want me to say, elf. That I'm sorry I ever involved her in the expedition? You know I am. If I could go back --”

“Spoon!” Firion cries excitedly, his enunciation of the word surprisingly crisp, and reaches forward across the table with one tiny, pudgy hand. 

Varric watches, fascinated, as Fenris patiently takes the hand in his own, draws it back, and with infinite tenderness places it on the open face of the picture-book.  
“No,” he tells the boy, and his voice is both gentle and firm; a voice Varric has never heard before, has never _imagined_ hearing from Fenris. It is a father-voice, and it hurts his heart almost as much as it warms it. _There's one thing Blondie had right_ , he thinks. _Nobody has the right to tell anybody they can't have this._

When Fenris turns his attention from his son again the father-voice is gone, but the firmness remains. “I do not expect you to apologize, Varric,” he says. “What's done is done. And I am … aware that we have much to thank you for: I know that you have gone far to ensure Hawke's security. But she has suffered enough. Neither Llomerryn nor the Imperium did much to improve her state of mind after what happened at the Gallows and it has taken her a long time to recover.” He smooths his son's wild black hair with the flat of one hand, and it springs back almost at once. “She is better, now. More herself. But she remains … fragile. Do not give her cause to sit up writing more letters.”

Varric takes a deep breath and lets it out in a long, low sigh. He wants to promise in no uncertain terms that he has no intention of upsetting Hawke, that she invited him here because he's her friend, and that he is tired and wants no more trouble for anyone, anywhere, himself included. But he can't. “There are … there are things she needs to know about,” he says at last, still unable to meet Fenris's eyes. “Things she has a right to know about.” _Things I can't deal with on my own_. “I can't keep everything from her. Leaving aside the, uh, ethics of lying to her, do you have any idea what she'd do to me if she found out?” He tries a smile, but it falters on his lips in the face of Fenris's hard green eyes.

“I do not say you should hide the truth, Varric,” he says. “Only that you should not give her cause to – ”

The staircase gives a tell-tale creak. Varric looks up and sees Hawke standing on the uppermost riser, arms folded, lips pursed.  
“Well," she says coolly, "this is nice. I do so enjoy being talked about as if I'm not within earshot, it's very enlightening.” She starts down the stairs with a nimbleness that belies the weight she is carrying, and when she reaches the bottom she plants her hands on her hips. “Would this be an opportune time for me to remind you that it's only thanks to Varric I'm not sitting in a cell in the Gallows drooling into my lap with a brand on my forehead?”

Fenris looks pained. “I am only concerned for you,” he says, softly. “I do not wish you any further distress.”

For a moment Varric thinks she will be angry with him, or at least exasperated; but she isn't. She crosses to the table, moves around it to stand at his side, and drapes an arm loosely about his shoulders. “I know,” she says, smiling, and her fingers twine lazily in his hair. She rests her free hand on the crown of their son's head. “But I'm a big girl. A very big one, just at the moment. I can cope.” She bends to press her lips to the elf's temple, and to Varric's surprise he does not shy away from the gesture, as once he might have done in the presence of another; instead he inclines his head, leaning into her touch, his eyes drifting briefly closed.

“As you wish, Hawke,” he says, and with that the matter seems settled.

-

The attic room is small, perhaps half the size of the parlour, but warmly lit and inviting, furnished with a low, comfortable-looking bed strewn with pillows and brightly-coloured quilts. A beautiful brass lamp with a tall, elegant glass chimney hangs from a hook in the centre of the low ceiling, and there are several large chests and cabinets placed in no apparent pattern around the walls, almost all of them breathing the intoxicating scent of warm camphor-wood into the air. There are more Nevarran rugs on the floor up here – a nod to Hawke's remote maternal ancestry - and the walls are hung with mismatched banners and tapestries, no doubt acquired in the market district where she maintains the little curio shop that has provided her with such an excellent disguise over the last two years.

On the rear wall, mounted beside a narrow slit window with a leaded pane, is a souvenir from Kirkwall that Varric recognises at once: the broken blade of the Arishok's sword. Beside it is a handsome Orlesian screen, brightly painted, hiding a large stoneware pot; beneath it stands a low dresser on which Hawke has set a basin and a ewer, the latter filled to the brim with steaming water. Varric wonders briefly whether she heated the water over the fire – glowing merrily in a cast iron basket in the hearth – or by means less traditional; a hand in the ewer, a small fire spell. It doesn't matter, of course: fire is fire and water is water, magic or no magic – but the picture his mind has made of Hawke dipping a blazing hand into a water-jug calls up something else, something uncomfortable –

 _My name is Lirene_ , he thinks, _and I write to you on behalf of our mutual friend._

There is a battered leather armchair beside the hearth and Varric drops his coat onto it, glad to be rid of its weight. The corner of the envelope containing Lirene's letter peers out at him from inside the lining, and not for the first time he thinks _burn it, throw it on the fire and burn it, it's not your problem, Blondie can burn too and good riddance._

He does not throw the letter into the fire, of course; in his own way he is no less able to let sleeping dogs lie than Hawke is, and sooner or later he is going to have to deal with the rumours related in that letter; sooner or later he is going to _want_ to deal with them. 

_But not now. Maker, please, not now._ He returns to the dresser, pours hot water into the basin and splashes his face. It is no easy task to shave in the back of a juddering provisioner's cart on an uneven mountain road, and patchy stubble rasps his hands. 

_Take care of it tomorrow_ , he thinks, and shuffles back across the room toward the bed. He perches on the edge of it, then leans back into the pile of quilts Hawke has laid out. Almost at once, he feels himself sinking: both into the overstuffed mattress and into the dark grappling embrace of sleep. 

_Should take off my boots_ , he thinks, and begins to snore.


	3. Chapter 3

He wakes to late morning sunshine and the weight of Prince's head on his chest. Someone – _Hawke, of course_ – has removed his boots and covered him with a blanket, and when he swings his legs over the side of the bed – the dog having taken his leave and barrelled down the stairs in response to a sudden interesting smell from below – he finds a pair of house-slippers have been set out for him: dark brown velvet embroidered in gold, evidently made for dwarven feet, though not themselves of dwarven make.

 _Must've belonged to Bodahn or Sandal_ , he thinks, but when he slips his feet into them he finds that they feel quite new – and that they are a perfect fit. Evidently they have been bought for him – perhaps even made for him – and as he stands up and walks across the room in them he is struck once again by that strange sense of coming home. _Care, that's all it is,_ he thinks again. _That's what home is - the people who care about you, the people who love you, who take you in even when you've hurt them. They open the door even though they know you might bring trouble through it._ Unaccountably he finds he feels like weeping … but he feels like laughing, too. He glances down at the slippers and shakes his head, incredulous. _Hawke_ , he thinks, and then he shuffles across to the screen and makes use of the pot. That done, he washes with cold water from the basin, pulls a clean shirt and britches from his pack, dresses, and makes his way downstairs.

-

Breakfast – which Fenris insists is technically luncheon, given that it is almost noon by the time Varric sits down to eat it – consists of dark crisp twigs of bacon, a rubbery substance that in a fairer world might have been scrambled eggs, and a large platter of bread, cheese, and fruit. Hawke apologises profusely for the bacon and eggs; Varric tells her he enjoyed them, and does not have to lie.

“I did my best,” she says, sipping tea from a large red stoneware mug. “Your basic fried eggs aren't a problem – there's just something about the scrambled variety that I can't quite get the hang of.” She sits down, smiling sheepishly, and helps herself to a piece of cheese.

The parlour is as pleasant in the daylight as it had been the previous evening. Sunlight pours in through the squat rectangular window beside the wide front door and prints a pattern of angled diamonds, cut by the lead muntins that crisscross the glass, onto the floorboards and the rugs. The alchemy equipment Hawke keeps on the cabinet beneath the windowsill – bottles and vials and jars and gleaming retorts – sparkles like jewellery and throws green and blue and red shadows onto the floor. 

Between the stove and the rear wall – outside the door that, if Varric's memory serves him correctly, leads to Orana's room – Prince sprawls contentedly, tucking into a dish of cold lamb stew. Firion leans against him, half asleep, with a brightly painted wooden letter-block clutched in one small brown hand.

“You did fine as far as I'm concerned, Hawke,” Varric says. “If I don't die of food poisoning, I'll recommend you to my friends and relatives.” He grins, and she grins back.

“Please don't,” she says. “I don't think I fancy having to provide board and lodging for a lot of freeloading Tethrases.”

“You wouldn't know what hit you,” he chuckles, and Fenris smirks and begins cutting a large wedge of cheese into cubes.

“No,” Hawke concedes, “I don't suppose I would. But … listen, are you feeling up to a bit of storytelling? I don't think I can wait much longer. I want to know what's been happening."

Varric thinks for a moment, then nods. “I'll be glad to tell you whatever you want to know,” he says, “but … what about big sister and little sparrow? I haven't seen a sign of them – they ought to hear it too.”

Hawke shakes her head. “Both gone to town long before you got up, I'm afraid. Varania's been helping Orana run the shop since she came over from Kirkwall. Honestly, I never thought those two would learn to get along, but they're thick as thieves these days.”

Varric chuckles. “You have a habit of making people play nice, Hawke," he says, and ignores the uncouth hand-gesture she makes in response. "Ah, well. Too bad. They'll just have to hear the highlights later. Although I think I might skirt around some of the worst of it. It's … not all sunshine and bunnies.”

Fenris, who has finished cutting up the cheese, rises from his chair and crosses the room to collect his son from the rug. Prince has fallen asleep, and does not notice that his young charge has left him.

“You wish to spare Orana and my sister,” Fenris says, “but not us? That is instructive, Varric. It's good to know the level of esteem in which you hold us.” 

Varric frowns, opens his mouth to reply – then sees that the elf is smirking. _Full of surprises_ , he thinks, _will wonders never cease_. “I know you two can take it,” he replies, grinning expansively at them both. “You've got the little guy to keep you smiling.” 

Fenris resettles himself in his seat with his son once more on his lap; the boy immediately reaches for his father's plate and begins munching grapes and little pieces of cheese. The elf snorts. “We do not smile much when he wakes us in the small hours because he wishes to hear the tree story again,” he says, and Hawke laughs into her tea.

“Tree story, huh?” Varric inquires. “This I have to hear. Professional curiosity, you understand.”

“Isabela gave us a book of old Rivaini folktales for his last nameday,” Hawke says, shaking her head. “It's full of stories about talking animals and trees and things like that. There's one particular yarn about a dancing oak tree that's his favourite - he won't go to sleep unless Fenris reads it to him. It doesn't seem to matter how many times he hears it, he never gets tired of it.”

“We are considering the possibility of arranging an accident for the book,” Fenris mutters darkly, and wipes grape-juice from his son's mouth with a practised thumb. He glances briefly at Hawke, then says, “You had better begin, Varric.”

-

“I guess I should start with the Warden,” he says, watching as Hawke pours wine into his cup from a squat flask with an illegible label.

“Which one?” she asks.

“ _The_ Warden,” Varric says, leaning forward and permitting himself a little dramatic pause. “It turns out that the Hero of Ferelden may not have been quite as heroic as everyone thought.” 

Hawke's brows knit in consternation and he knows he has hooked her. And why not? The legend of the Grey Warden who saved the South from the Blight is one that has fascinated her ever since its first whispered hints began to reach Kirkwall in the spring of 9:31. “The trouble with legends,” Varric says with a thin smile, “is that they're only part truth; the rest is mostly imagination mixed with a little wishful thinking.”

“Are you going to tell us, or what?” Hawke asks impatiently, wearing a petulant expression that would be as much at home on the face of her infant son as it is on her own.

“Sorry, Hawke,” he says, shaking his head. “Just … collecting the ends of the story. It's a killer.” Varric is gratified to see that she has sat forward in her chair – as much as her absurdly swollen belly will allow, anyway. Fenris is sitting at attention, too, quiet, listening, casually bouncing his son on one knee.

“Well?” Hawke presses.

Varric sits back, settling himself into his storyteller's pose, tenting his fingers in front of him. “They say in Orzammar that the Warden was a scion of House Aeducan,” he begins. Hawke interrupts him almost at once.

“I know the basics, Varric,” she says.

“I'm trying to tell you a story here. Let me do it my way, alright?” 

“Sorry,” she says. “Go on.”

“The 'noble son of Orzammar' angle has been quite a boon to what’s left of the Aeducan family,” Varric continues, quickly falling back into his standard professional cadence. “I've heard that King Bhelen himself had a hand in making sure that was the version that went out of the city with anybody who left for the surface: good publicity, you might say. But, like just about anything of that kind, it's a pretty long way from the truth.” Hawke's eyes are gleaming; tales flavoured with dwarven intrigue have always captivated her and Varric is pleased to see he hasn’t lost his touch. “The truth is,” he says, adding a dark little smile for emphasis, “that the ‘Hero of Ferelden’ was no Aeducan, and no prince. He was, in point of fact, a casteless thief - dragged up from the slums and a heartbeat away from execution when the Wardens breezed through and took him topside.”

Hawke blinks at him. “Piss,” she says, sounding not dismissive but excited. “I don't believe it, it's too perfect.” 

“Would I lie to you, Hawke?” Varric spreads his hands and favours her with a smile.

“I decline to answer that,” she replies, “on the basis that it might affect our friendship. But look, is this really legitimate, or what? Where did you get it from?”

“From the horse's mouth,” Varric says, still smiling. “Or some might say the horse’s ass; it all depends on how you look at the world. I heard what I’ve just told you from another Grey Warden, and one whose name might be familiar to you.”

“Who?” Hawke demands, frowning. “I’m fairly certain there are no Grey Wardens in my address book.”

Varric’s smile broadens. “Maybe not,” he concedes, “but you’ll have heard of this one. His name is Loghain Mac Tir.”

Hawke blinks at him. “Loghain,” she repeats, and purses her lips. “As in the father of the Queen of Ferelden. As in the hero of the River Dane, peasant farmer turned Teyrn … _that_ Loghain?”

“The one and only,” Varric replies. “Although there’s a little more to his history than what most people have heard.”

Hawke’s frown deepens. “I remember there were some rumours about him being a traitor,” she says. “And one about him riding a bronto through the streets of Denerim dressed as a washer-woman. I didn’t believe either of them.”

Varric’s smile has become an expansive – and slightly wolfish - grin. “Then I’m tickled pink to be the one to enlighten you,” he tells her. “It’s all true. Well, maybe not the part about the bronto; about that I don’t know any more than you do. But the traitor part? Believe it.” He leans forward, meeting her gaze, holding it. “He told me the whole story. He’s quite a character, that Loghain; he’s smart and he’s mean and he has all the charm of a sack full of weasels, but he’s a _wellspring_ of information. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man with so many secrets to tell. Other than yours truly, of course.”

Hawke lets out a little frustrated huff. “So he really _was_ behind what happened at Ostagar?” she asks. “That was true?”

“Every word,” Varric replies. “Although, as you can probably imagine, he has his own spin on the why and the how.”

“Carver almost died at Ostagar,” she mutters indignantly.

“A lot of other people _did_ die, Hawke,” Varric says. “He was lucky.”

She looks away. “I know that,” she says, and Varric thinks _way to go, Tethras, why don’t you kick her, too?_

“The point is,” he says, forcing himself back into his storyteller’s voice, “that Loghain – hero or villain, it doesn’t really matter – had a lot to say on the subject of the fellow who made him a Grey Warden. And that fellow was no more what people believe him to be than Loghain is.”

Fenris grunts. “People are seldom what others believe them to be,” he says flatly.

“You got that right, Broody,” Varric replies, but Fenris has already turned his attention back to his son, if ever it had left him; the boy is tugging on his father's hair, cheese and grapes forgotten.

“All right,” Hawke says. “So Loghain isn’t good people. Fine, I get that bit. What I don’t get is how he came to be privy to information about the Warden’s origins. When was Loghain in Orzammar?”

“He wasn't, as far as I know,” Varric replies. “And I didn’t get _everything_ from Loghain: I did a little digging of my own, wrote to some cousins of mine and asked some salient questions. But Loghain and the Warden _were_ travelling companions – and Loghain had a … what you might call a special interest in the subject.”

“What do you mean?” Hawke asks, giving the question emphasis with one wildly-gesticulating hand. The firelight catches and gleams like gold on her short, neat fingernails, and Varric thinks _nice detail, I should use that sometime._

“Is there some subtext I’m missing here, Varric?” Hawke resumes. “Don’t tell me – Loghain and the Warden were star-crossed lovers. Or better yet, the very best of pals – they told each other everything, and this is really an epic about the enduring brilliance and purity of masculine friendship. Is that it? If that’s it I'm afraid I shall be sick. I mean it, too: vomiting is the one thing I'm really good at when I'm pregnant.”

“You are also very capable when it comes to weeping irrationally and eating coal,” Fenris interjects drily.

Hawke flashes a look at him and he smiles his wry satisfied smile at her. When she turns back to Varric, he sees she is wearing a tiny smile of her own. _Andraste's ass, they're adorable,_ he thinks, and shakes his head in wonder, chuckling to himself a little. 

“What's so funny?” Hawke asks, and Varric shakes his head.

“Nothing,” he says. “May I continue with the story, please?”

Hawke takes a handful of grapes from the cheese-platter and puts five of them in her mouth at once. “Yes, go on,” she replies, the words muffled and distorted by the fruit. “But skip the backstory and just tell me about the Warden. The stuff about Loghain can wait.”

“Are you telling it, or am I?”

“Sorry,” Hawke says again, swallowing her grapes with an audible gulp that makes Varric wince.

“Thanks,” he replies. His throat feels dry; he takes a draught from his cup. “As I was saying, Loghain told me that the Warden – his name, by the way, was actually Brosca - was due to be executed before being recruited into the Order. According to … let's say ‘more than one credible source’, he was jailed for murdering an associate during a card game in a tavern.”

“Sounds a very colourful fellow, but what -”

“Hawke, will you please stop interrupting?” She rolls her eyes, exasperated, but subsides. Varric takes a deep breath and another draught from his cup and continues. “I don't know if he was really as bad as all that – as a matter of fact he sounds pretty average to me, at least for Orzammar. But we come back to my point about people not being what they seem, or what others imagine them to be." He pauses, frowning, trying to recall precisely what he has and hasn't already told her; they have exchanged perhaps a dozen letters in the eleven months since Justinia's murder, and he has lost track of much of the information he has passed to her. “I wrote to you about the False Calling, right? About all those Wardens doing a disappearing act?” he asks.

Hawke nods and sips her tea. “Yes, you did.”  
  
“Alright. So here's the thing: you know the story says the Hero of Ferelden vanished after the Blight ended?”  
  
“Yes,” she replies, and then: “Are you saying what I think you're saying? That the False Calling business was the reason he vanished?”

Varric allows himself another dramatic little pause, then sinks lower in his chair. “Warden Brosca disappeared in the Vimmark mountains in the winter of 'thirty-seven,” he says. “Loghain followed him there on the orders of the First Warden. He told Adaar and the Seeker that the Order had been suspicious of Brosca for some time: apparently he'd been sending Wardens out of Ferelden on weird errands, and he'd spent almost a year locked away in the library at Weisshaupt poring over histories and journals and who knows what else. He was supposed to be commanding the Fereldan Wardens, but from the sound of it he didn't take much of an interest in his work.”

“But I don't see --”

“Loghain believes that Brosca was searching for Corypheus.”

 _“ … What?"_ Hawke's tone is still unbelieving, but now she also sounds confused. "What do you mean, 'searching for'?" she asks. "You mean he knew about him before all this business started?"

Varric nods. “Brosca left Weisshaupt for Ferelden late in 'thirty-six," he replies. "Loghain went after him, but when he got to Amaranthine Brosca was already gone – and so were the rest of the Wardens stationed there. There was no sign of them except for for a scorched note in a dog-grate. The writing was mostly burned away, but there were three words that were still legible, according to Loghain: _Vimmark, Kirkwall,_ and _thaig_." He pauses again, letting the tension build a little and thinking _I've still got it._ After a moment he continues. "The note was written in Brosca's hand," he says, "and the dog-grate was in a room belonging to a Warden named Nathaniel Howe. That mean anything to you, Hawke?”

She blinks at him, looking blank … and then he sees the connections fall into place, sees the memory surfacing. Her eyes grow round.

“That Warden we rescued from the Deep Roads!” she exclaims. “He was trying to find his way down to the abandoned thaig!”

“Yeah. Brosca sent him there. And while Howe was in Kirkwall looking for a way to get to it, Brosca was in the Vimmark mountains, looking for the place where the Wardens had been keeping Corypheus locked up since the fall of the old Imperium.” 

Fenris sits bolt upright; his markings flare with brief and brilliant light. Hawke blinks owlishly, her eyes still wide. 

“Locked up?" she asks. "The Wardens were keeping Corypheus prisoner? They _all_ knew about him?”

“No," Varric replies. "I don't think they _all_ knew. I don't believe Loghain did, anyway; he seemed pretty annoyed about being kept in the dark. Not just about that, but about other things, too. See, the Wardens at Weisshaupt suspected something was up, but they didn't tell Loghain what; just told him to 'investigate'. So he did. He followed Brosca's trail across the Waking Sea and when he found the Free Marches crawling with Fereldan Wardens, he knew he was on the right track. Brosca had heard about the abandoned thaig and sent his men to look for it.”

“... That is why there were Grey Wardens in Kirkwall at the time of the Qunari uprising,” Fenris says. 

Hawke frowns, and Varric almost sees the lights go on behind her eyes as the memory surfaces. “That's right,” she exclaims, “those fellows we met when we were trying to find out what the Arishok had done with the Viscount! Aveline and I tried to get them to help, but they more or less told us to get stuffed. Makes sense if they were busy trying to ... well ... what _were_ they trying to do, Varric?”

"I'm not sure what their plan was," he says, "but Loghain thinks Brosca believed the abandoned thaig would lead him to Corypheus. Given how things turned out, I'd say he wasn't far wrong."

"So were they all in on it? All ... corrupt, or whatever? Did we ... did we make things worse by rescuing that fellow Howe?"

Varric shakes his head; there are some things he _can_ be sure about. "No," he says. "Howe was only one of many - a dozen, maybe more. And Brosca was determined. I don't know if all of them, or even _any_ of them, knew what they were getting into - if they were hearing Corypheus calling to them like Brosca did, or just following orders - and I guess it doesn't matter. It worked out the same, either way."

" ... I suppose so," Hawke says, and she smiles; it's the smile she uses to hide her hurt, one Varric remembers well, but it has grown thinner, somehow - as though worn with over-use. He remembers Fenris saying _neither Llomerryn nor the Imperium did anything to improve her state of mind_ and wonders, not for the first time, just what unpleasant adventures the two of them experienced in between leaving Kirkwall and settling in Jader. One day he will ask, he thinks; but not now.

“Loghain picked up Brosca's trail in the Vimmarks,” he resumes, leaning back in his chair again, conscious of the stiffening in his back and his legs; he has been sitting too long. “Apparently 'the Hero' hadn't bothered to conceal what he was doing; Loghain thinks that was because his mind was … unravelling.”

“Unravelling?” Hawke echoes.

“Yeah. The Vimmarks were where Loghain said he first heard the False Calling himself. The further he went into the mountains, the louder it got. It had some kind of effect on him – made it hard to think, he said. But it led him in the right direction. That's how he came to find Brosca's journal.”

Hawke lets out a bark of laughter. “Oh, convenient,” she says. “Let me guess - he kept a diary documenting his descent into madness and depravity. The best lunatics always do.”

“Laugh all you want, Hawke,” Varric replies, “but that's just about exactly what he did. According to Loghain, he’d kept a record of everything he'd found in the Weisshaupt library that mentioned the Vimmark mountains, everything he'd learned or pieced together about Corypheus, how he'd started to hear 'singing' after the Wardens drove the last of the darkspawn out of Amaranthine. The margins of the journal were filled with crazy drawings and weird pronouncements about the return of the Old Gods.”

“Each to their own, Varric," Hawke scoffs. "I doodle in my journal too.”

“Hawke,” Fenris says, and she laughs nervously. 

“Sorry,” she murmurs, and nods at Varric. “Go on.”  
  
“Thanks. There was a trail of blood leading away from the campsite where Loghain found that journal,” Varric continues, “but that was all; no sign of Brosca, and no sign of anyone – or anything – else. It was a dead place, or so he said, not even darkspawn to be seen, or sensed, or whatever it is Wardens do. Loghain didn’t know it, but he’d stumbled on the exact spot where the ancient Wardens had imprisoned Corypheus – and Brosca had gotten there first and let everything loose. Loghain thinks Corypheus called out to Brosca, broke his mind, and pulled him to that place with one single purpose.”  
  
“He desired freedom,” Fenris mutters darkly, and Varric nods.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What happened next?” Hawke asks, taking another handful of grapes from the table.  
  
Varric takes a breath and tents his fingers across his chest again. “Loghain started for the Anderfels to report what he'd found,” he says, “but then things came to a head in Kirkwall and the war got in his way. It took him almost a year to reach Weisshaupt … and when he got there, something was different. The First Warden dismissed his report, he said, and wouldn't take his findings seriously; she told him to stand down and forget about Brosca. He left and came South again, on his own, looking for answers. That was how he found us, and how I came to hear what I’m telling you."

Hawke sits back and sniffs thoughtfully. “Well,” she says, after a long silence. “That's quite a story.”

“Yeah,” Varric agrees. He cracks his knuckles; he needs to get up, move around a little, stop his joints from seizing up. 

"Are you sure Loghain wasn't ... you know, spinning you a line? I mean if that stuff about Ostagar really is true, and he really is a traitor - " 

"He had no reason to lie, Hawke," Varric says. "He wanted the truth as much as the Inquisition did, albeit for his own reasons."

"But if the Wardens are corrupted -"

"He wasn't."

"Oh." She falls silent for a moment, rubbing thoughtfully at her chin with the pad of a thumb. “Alright," she says at last. "What about Brosca? What happened to him?”

“That I can't tell you”, Varric replies. “Maybe Corypheus killed him, or maybe he went down into the Deep Roads to … you know, do whatever it is Grey Wardens do when they're all used up. Either way, he’s gone.”

Fenris snorts. “So. The hero is revealed as a servant of evil and the traitor proves himself the only Grey Warden worthy of praise,” he says. “A fitting irony.”

“Life's just full of surprises, huh?” Varric replies, and thinks _they never stop coming._

Ignoring them both, Hawke asks, “Do you really believe Corypheus was what he said he was? An ancient magister? You … never actually said in any of your letters.” Her eyes are bright and keen and searching again, and Varric finds he has to look away. It's enough. “You do,” she says. She sounds disappointed, but not really surprised. “All right. What about the Wardens? Did they believe it? Or your qunari friend?”

“The Wardens I'm not sure about. But Adaar? No. He has the same deep respect for Chantry doctrine you do.” Hawke laughs. “You'd get along like a house on fire, actually,” Varric adds as an afterthought.

“Really? Well, I must write him a little congratulatory note some time, perhaps invite him for tea.”

“You'd have to give him a month's notice,” he says. “He went back to his family in Tantervale. Didn’t want anything more to do with any of this.”

“Good for him,” Hawke replies. “Sounds like we really _might_ get along.” She pushes her chair away from the table and gets to her feet – with some difficulty, Varric notes, and he wonders how she manages to chase after a toddler with so much extra weight to carry. She puts her hands to the small of her back and stretches, then asks, “What about the rest of your new friends? Do they believe Corypheus was really an ancient magister? Is there…you know, an official position, or anything?”

Fenris looks up from his son's nodding head and asks,“What does it matter whether they believe it or not, Hawke? This Corypheus – whatever he was – is destroyed, and if he truly was one of the old magisters then that is all we should be concerned with.”

Varric watches her for a moment, then says, “There … _is_ something else you ought to know, Hawke.” He's dreading what must come next ... but the sooner it's out, the better. She looks at him in silence, waiting for him to continue, and he reads apprehension in her face as clearly as if it had been written there in red ink. When he does not speak again she presses him.

“Don't keep me in suspense, please. What is it?”

“You're … not going to like it.”

“I haven't liked any of this so far. I'm hardly going to be disappointed now.”

He draws in a deep breath, scratches at the back of his neck, clears his throat. After a further fortifying draught from his cup he says, “There's an … unofficial appendix to The Tale of the Champion being circulated. It, uh … it claims you were the one who found the prison and released Corypheus.”

She pales. Visibly pales. Varric has never seen such a thing happen before, though he has read about it and written about it more than once; the colour drains from her face even as he looks at her. Fenris has fallen silent.

“They're blaming me?” Hawke asks in a small, quiet voice that does not seem to belong to her.

Varric opens his mouth to say something conciliatory, perhaps even something funny; but her pinched, bloodless face makes him think better of it. “Yeah,” he says at last.

“For everything.”

“... Yeah. You and, uh ...”

“ … And what?” she asks, and although she doesn’t say it Varric can almost hear her add _what now, please don’t tell me it gets worse._

“You and your father,” he says, and gives an apologetic little shrug; he can offer nothing better.

She blinks rapidly, her brow furrowing. “My … my father? What’s he got to do with it?”

Varric looks at the floorboards. “The, uh … the appendix blames him for part of what happened. It says some stuff about blood magic and a seal and how the Wardens used Hawke blood to keep Corypheus in chains. It’s not very coherent,” he mutters. “It's amateurish and it doesn't make a word of sense, but … it’s in there. Whoever wrote the damn thing was pretty keen to discredit you.”

“… They’re accusing my father of using blood magic?” Hawke asks, and she doesn’t sound angry or incredulous or offended but _hurt_ , and Varric hates himself a little for not keeping this part back.

“It’s … it’s only a short passage,” he says, clearing his throat a little for punctuation. “Barely a mention in passing. And like I said, it’s pretty incoherent. It’s just a … you know, a device, a way of making you look … I mean … it’s not ...”

He can’t finish, because when he looks up at her again he sees an expression on her face he has never seen before, not once in all the years they’ve been acquainted. It looks, in fact, like several expressions at once, all fighting to get to the surface like the contents of a stewpot. It’s a _boiling_ expression. For several long moments she says nothing else; she only stares at him – or rather through him, her gaze fixed on a point on the kitchen wall somewhere behind his head. Then, in one sudden movement, she reaches out and sweeps the cups and dishes and plates from the table and onto the floor. The bread-platter scythes across the room, landing on its edge on the bare boards between two rugs and exploding into sherds. Prince wakes up, stands, and lets out a querulous bark; Fenris leaps to his feet, taking his son with him; Firion stares momentarily at his mother with impossibly wide eyes and then begins to wail.

Varric is dismayed to see tears standing in her eyes; as he watches they spill over and patter onto the collar of her tunic in two dark splotches, and he curses himself. “Hawke,” he says, “I'm sorry. Listen, I --”

“I'll never be able to go home, will I?” she cries, her voice cracking and trembling, sounding dangerously close to hysteria; the colour has returned to her face with a vengeance and her cheeks are scarlet with fury. “Bastards!”

Firion's wailing grows louder. “Hawke,” Fenris says softly, and out of the corner of his eye Varric sees him approaching her, cradling the boy in his arms.

“My father was worth ten of any one of those fuckers,” she hisses, and Varric recoils; this last epithet cuts the air like a spark cutting its way through bacon grease. “If I ever find out who did this,” she mutters, “ … if I _ever_ …” 

“Hawke!” Fenris snaps, sharply; it's enough. She turns to look at him, then registers the caterwauling infant in his arms. Varric is fascinated to see – quite clearly – the precise moment she realizes that the boy's upset is her fault: her face crumples into a caricature of regret and misery and she scoops him from Fenris's grasp, clutching him to her and turning away. Her shoulders heave convulsively and for what seems like an age she only stands there, her back to the table and the hearth, sobbing bitterly into the black mop of her son's hair.

“Hawke,” Varric says at last, desperate to make things better, to make her stop crying like that – _like the funeral_ , he thinks, _Leandra's funeral, we thought she'd fall right into the flames, we had to hold her up_ \- “I don't know who's behind it. I've got people trying to find out. But even if they don't turn anything up – ”

“What does it matter?” she asks, her voice choked. “It's been written, hasn't it? It might as well be true.”

“It … it may not be as bad as it looks on the surface, Hawke, really,” Varric says, and thinks _better make this good._

“Oh? I can never go back to Kirkwall, my children are going to have to live their entire lives under assumed names – we’re going to have to move! I love this house, Varric, I _love_ it, my son was _born_ here. We’ll have to get out, we’ll have to leave, they’re bound to be looking for me now, and what if --”

“Hawke”, Fenris says again, this time more softly, and she stills, turning slightly towards him. “You knew this was a possibility.”

Firion's wailing has begun to quiet and she raises a hand to his head, stroking his hair. She draws a breath, lets it out in a long, low, bitter sigh, and then turns to face them. The kohl she wears around her eyes has smudged and run and left brown-black trails on her cheeks. “Yes,” she says. “I knew I'd likely hear spurious gossip about my peccadilloes or my business interests or a rumoured predilection for human flesh at dinner. I didn't think I'd end up being accused of every horror and monstrosity under the sun. And it’s not just that. What about the mages who survived the rebellion?” The elf’s face darkens, but Hawke seems unperturbed. “They've enough to contend with as it is,” she continues. “If people really believe that one of the ancient magisters walked out of Chantry myth and murdered the Divine, and that an _apostate_ was responsible for it – _two_ apostates, related by blood, for pity's sake - they might decide it worth their time to go mage-hunting to 'make sure nothing like that can ever happen again'. Idiots are fond of that sort of thing. The roads could be thick with torches and pitchforks already. We could find ourselves watching a lynching every Tuesday in the market square, and I really don’t want that on my conscience, it’s --”

Fenris scowls. “It is not your concern, Hawke,” he says, and he sounds angry … but Varric thinks he knows better. _Mostly just scared, that's all. Can’t blame him: living with her must be like sleeping in a tinderbox, you never know when it might go off and set itself on fire._

For a moment Hawke only looks at the elf sadly, her slender eyebrows drawn tight. Then she says something Varric has never imagined hearing from her.

“I know it isn’t,” she mutters. “And I know there’s nothing I can do about it, so don’t bother with the lecture, alright? But to think that so much harm could come from … from what? From the Chantry needing a scapegoat? I ...”

“Hawke,” Fenris says again, gently, and Varric thinks _shit, would you listen to that? He can do gentle. Who knew?_

“ … I know,” she says again, almost in a whisper this time. Her face is pinched.

 _Time for the white knight act, Tethras,_ Varric thinks, and clears his throat again. “Listen, Hawke,” he says, “this … probably won’t make you feel any better, at least not right away. But … I do have an idea. Something that’ll help. That _should_ help, anyway, if I know anything about people and the way they work. And I, uh … I think I do.”

She looks down at him suspiciously, her eyes bright and wet, the rest of her face still mostly obscured by her son’s hair. Fenris folds his arms across his chest, waiting.

“Oh? Do tell,” Hawke insists, injecting the words with a healthy level of sarcasm that makes Varric think _that’s more like it._

He fixes her with his most winning smile - the very smile that had first caught her attention all those years ago when he’d rescued her mostly-empty coinpurse from an inept Hightown pickpocket. “I've got it all worked out,” he tells her, and finds that he believes himself. “More or less, anyway. Now, I can't undo what's written in that appendix; like you said, it’s already written. But I _can_ make people _question_ it. Make them ... reassess what they believe.”

“ _Do_ people believe it?” she asks.

“People believe what they wish to, Hawke, you know that well,” Fenris says.

“They believe what the bloody Chantry tells them to, you mean,” Hawke says, softly and through gritted teeth; the flash of anger that caused her to sweep the dinner-things onto the floor has abated, and she is beginning to be calm again, but that volatility – that sense of _boiling_ \- is still there, just below the surface. _The elf wasn't kidding,_ Varric thinks, watching her subside and picturing the bread-dish shattering like a bomb on the floorboards, _she's ... not alright._

“For what it's worth,” he says, “I don't think you need to worry too much about the Chantry right now. It's … got problems of its own.”

“After a thousand years of making problems for other people?" she snaps. "My heart bleeds."

“Things have changed, Hawke,” Varric says, trying to sound encouraging. "It's ... not like it was. I think maybe -- "

“Varric, I don't want to talk about the pissing Chantry."

“Fine,” he says, shrugging. “I'm just telling you I don't think it's as much of a danger to you as it was, that's all. Let's go back to talking about my plan.”

Fenris raises one thick dark eyebrow. “You have a plan, now?” he asks, his own naked sarcasm more than a match for Hawke's. “A moment ago it was merely an idea. Now it has become a plan. The speed at which you work is impressive, dwarf.”

“Your admiration’s noted, Broody, thanks,” Varric retorts, sounding more annoyed than he really feels; he is beginning to regain his stride, and the more he thinks about it, the more his idea - _plan, it really is a plan now_ \- appeals to him. “It’s like this,” he says. “I’m writing another book. I’ve got all my notes in order; I just need to set everything down. It’s going to be about this whole business – Corypheus, the Breach, the Inquisition, the whole thing. Now … all I have to do to offset that garbage about Hawke and her father is work in a little counter-propaganda – fight all that negativity with something a little more positive. Something heroic. I'll write her in, tell the world she rode into Skyhold on the back of a dragon and helped save the day.” He spreads his hands expansively to illustrate his point; even as the words trip off his tongue, he begins to make out the bones of what he will write, his mind's eye depicting the Champion of Kirkwall joining forces with the Inquisition, using her knowledge and experience of the qunari people to win the trust and friendship of the Herald of Andraste and forging an alliance that –

“Are more lies really going to make this situation better, Varric?” Fenris asks coolly, breaking into his reverie. 

“Don’t brood at me, elf, you’re impeding my creative process,” Varric says. “And don’t call them ‘lies’. Stories and lies maybe be related, but they’re kissing cousins at best. There's _power_ in stories. You ought to know that; you have to read one to your kid every night or he won't go to sleep. Stories can make things happen. Stories can make people question even the things they most believe to be true – look at Andrastians who convert to the Qun. They hear stories, they like what they hear, they convert.”

“Most who convert to the Qun do so at the point of a blade,” Fenris says.

Varric shakes his head and waves a hand in the air, throwing off the contradiction. “Alright, alright, maybe that wasn’t the best example. It’s not important. What’s important is that stories have power to change the way people look at the world – to change the way they look at each other. If I write this thing, Hawke, you come out smelling of roses and people who read it look at each other and say, ‘you know, that Champion of Kirkwall sure is a terrific woman, saving the day twice – why, I don’t believe a word of that stuff about her being the bad guy. And even if it was true, she made up for it later. What a great girl, I hope I meet her someday and she marries my son’.”

Hawke stares at him, silent, blinking rapidly, for a long time. Fenris says nothing. At last, just as Varric is beginning to feel his smile faltering, Hawke lets out a little huff of laughter and says, “That’s … possibly the worst excuse for a plan I’ve ever heard, but … oddly enough, I do actually feel a bit better.”

“Hawke,” Fenris mutters, sounding both weary and faintly incredulous. “You don’t really -”

“It’s better than nothing, isn’t it?” she asks, interrupting him and lifting Firion up a little higher so his head can rest on her shoulder. “I mean alright, it’s not exactly a world-beater, but it probably won’t do any harm … and it _might_ do some good. Admittedly not before our grandchildren start thinkning about where they want to retire, but …”

“See, elf? She gets it,” Varric says, grinning again in spite of Fenris’s evident lack of faith.

“Yes,” Hawke says, turning her attention back to Varric, “she gets it.” She smiles down at him – really smiles, this time, although that strange volatile sadness still lingers around the corners of her mouth and her eyes. “What would I do without you, Varric?”

Impossibly, foolishly, he feels his face heating. He looks away, unaccountably embarrassed, and rubs nervously at the back of his neck. “Well, for starters you'd still have a full set of tableware,” he mutters, and although he'd intended them in the spirit of an apology the words are met with more silence … and then the unexpected and surprisingly lovely sound of Fenris's laughter. Real laughter, not wry or ironic amusement but a genuine unguarded appreciation of something that has tickled him. Varric tries to remember when he has heard it before, and can't; then he realizes that Hawke is laughing too, is in fact _shaking_ with laughter, so much so that Firion – who has pushed a lock of her sable hair into his mouth and is sucking it with considerable dedication - is bouncing up and down in her arms. She snorts and rolls her eyes heavenward, and Varric sees tears standing in them again; but he does not think these are of the same kind as the last. He shakes his head, amazed … and then finds himself joining in, if only a little.

When at last this burst of – mirth? Relief? Hysteria? - subsides, he says, “I'm sorry, Hawke. I never meant for you to be upset by any of this. I guess I knew you would be, and part of me didn’t want to tell you, but ... I thought you had a right to know.” 

“It’s alright,” she says, wiping her eyes with the back of her free hand. “I’m tougher than I look. I’ll live, I mean … assuming you weren’t followed here by a band of angry, unemployed templars.” She makes a humourless little sound in her throat. “And now I suppose I'd better get this mess cleaned up,” she adds. “I don’t want Prince to cut his paws.” She turns her head and presses a kiss to her son's temple, then holds him out toward Fenris. “Let's give you back to Dada, shall we?” she asks. “I've got a lot of sweeping to do.” 

Varric watches in silence as his friend hands her son to his father, and something in the gesture - the ease and familiarity of it, perhaps, or the surprising casual tenderness with which the elf folds the boy into the crook of one arm - makes him think of Kirkwall, and suddenly all he wants is to crawl under the table in his rooms at the Hanged Man and drink until he feels nothing.

-

In the end, though they both protest, Hawke will not allow either Fenris or Varric to help her tidy up. She simply sweeps up the pieces of broken crockery, waving a hand dismissively whenever either of them offers to take over, and once the shattered remains of her mismatched dinner service are finally cleared away and Fenris takes the broom from her she laughs. He returns their son to her in place of the broom and she takes him gratefully, then pulls a chair away from the table and eases into it, sitting Firion on her knees with his back to her swollen belly.

“Sorry,” she says, apparently not to either of them in particular. She looks up at Varric and her cheeks have coloured a little. “It … was just a bit of a shock, that’s all,” she explains, although she doesn’t have to; he understands. “I wasn't expecting it, and I should have been. Fenris is right, I knew very well I'd made myself a target.” She strokes her son's hair. “Maybe it was a mistake … running like that. Maybe I should have stayed in Kirkwall. Goodness knows I wanted to go back when I heard what was happening there – when I heard about Sebastian – but by then this one was on the way and I ... I just couldn't.”

“Hawke,” Fenris says, pulling a chair up and sitting beside her, “We have discussed this.”

“I know.”

“Kirkwall is no longer your concern.”

She rolls her eyes. “It's not as easy as that, damn it, and you know it isnt," she says. "You wouldn't write to Donnic every month if it was."

Fenris pulls a face; Firion, who knows nothing of Kirkwall and whose most pressing problem is deciding what he wants to eat, settles back against his mother's belly and begins inspecting the dishes on the table in front of him. “Teese,” he says, frowning intently - and then laughs.

Varric finds he can't help but smile; the boy's comic enthusiasm is irresistible. “He's a great kid,” he says, grinning. 

Hawke - calmer now, a little redness around the eyes the only remaining evidence of her earlier outburst - nods. “We think so,” she replies. “Don't we, nug-features?” She kisses her son's cheek and he scowls, his face becoming a tiny caricature of his father's. “Well, most of the time, anyway. You're not quite so nice when you're jumping up and down on our bed in the dead of night, are you?” 

“Teese,” Firion replies conversationally, then reaches for the plate in the centre of the table and manages to snag a handful of cheese and an apple slice. He hauls this bounty in, studies it closely for a moment, then pushes the lot into his mouth.

“You wouldn't change him for the world,” Varric says, grinning. 

“We would not,” Fenris replies, and Varric is amused – and more than a little amazed – by the unguarded smile on the elf's face.

“There's one last thing, Varric,” Hawke says, taking a sip of her tea. “I'd like to know just how worried I should be about these ‘Inquisition’ people, now that they've …. concluded their main business, as it were. _Have_ they concluded it? Is it over?”

Varric pulls a face. “That’s two things, Hawke,” he says, “and two different answers.”

“Well?”

“Well,” he says, settling back into his seat again, “The first answer is that I think you can relax, as far as … that particular organisation is concerned. You're not on their agenda.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning they're not interested in you. Although I know a lady Seeker who'd probably pee her pants if I were to send her your autograph.”

Hawke blinks at him. “You mean they're not coming after me?”

“Like I said, they're not interested. You’re not their business. And even if you were, they wouldn’t know where or how to find you. Not even _Fenris_ knows where to find you – you just vanished into thin air after the fight at the Gallows. Have you _still_ not read my book?” His grin broadens.

“Er … no, actually I haven’t,” she replies. “This may shock you, but the adventures of Gravy Hawke and her three hundred pound behind don’t really interest me all that much. Brilliantly written though I’m sure they are."

Fenris snorts. “Your vanity does you no credit, Hawke,” he says, trying – and failing – to repress a smirk.

“Oh? And I suppose you’re not remotely concerned with how you’re portrayed in the dwarf’s portfolio of calumnies?”

Varric chuckles, charmed by her choice of words. “Portfolio of Calumnies,” he repeats. “I might use that, Hawke. It’s pretty good.” He lifts his cup and drains the last of his wine. “Fenris has nothing to worry about, though. He’s not the comic relief. I have him fighting bandits and defending refugees from vagabonds and ne’er-do-wells on the backroads of the Free Marches. You know - grim, heroic, steely glint in his eye. That kind of thing.”

“Oh. Trite, but charming,” Hawke allows, and then leans sideways and plants a little darting kiss on Fenris's cheek.

“A noble cause,” he agrees. “It's gratifying to know that I've been putting my time to such good use.”

“Foo!” Firion exclaims triumphantly, and tries to push a cube of cheese into his father's ear. 

Hawke reaches across the table, takes one of Varric's hands in both of hers, raises it, and kisses the knuckles. “You're a prince, Varric Tethras,” she says. “An absolute prince.”

“Ah, come on, Hawke,” he replies, grinning and pulling the hand back. “I know that.”

\---

A fortnight passes before the call of home becomes too loud for Varric to ignore. When at last he leaves the Jader docks on a misty morning a week shy of Hawke's thirty-second nameday, he does so with a pack that is heavier – thanks to a stack of letters and gifts he has promised to deliver, not only for Fenris and for Hawke but for Varania and Orana, too – and a heart that is lighter, if only by a little. No matter what is waiting for him in Kirkwall – no matter what has been hurt and changed by time and by conflict – there is always hope. Things could be so much worse.

He reaches into the pocket concealed inside the breast of his coat and feels the edge of the envelope containing Lirene's missive, _I write on behalf of our mutual acquaintance_ , and wasn't that a light and airy word for a man like Anders? Acquaintance, the word for a person with whom one might occasionally take tea. He slips his hand from his coat again, satisfied that the envelope is still there. He will not think about it yet … and he will not make Hawke think about it at all.

He looks back at the quayside from the deck of his barque and rubs at the scar across the bridge of his nose and thinks of her – of her, and of Fenris, and of the life they have made for themselves here; of their little son and their impending new arrivals; of the silly pseudonym Hawke has given herself – _Wolfe_ , of all things, and Maker save her but she honestly thinks it's witty – and finds that he hasn't even the smallest of regrets.

Some things are worth lying for.


End file.
